That link 404s for me, but I'm sure I know which study it is (the "this is not a place of honor" one, right?). While the concept - leaving a message to stay readable for 10000 years - is extremely interesting, I find the reasons behind it rather silly. It's a solution in search of a problem - any societal collapse that leads to the entire concept of radioactivity being forgotten would leave mankind with bigger problems than accidentally drilling/mining into a radioactive waste (which, BTW, doesn't take all that long to become indistinguishable from plain old toxic waste, which nobody's building long-term storage facilities for) storage facility in the middle of the desert...

_________________Living in a state free from the burdens of privacy and democracy since 2008-06-18.

That link 404s for me, but I'm sure I know which study it is (the "this is not a place of honor" one, right?). While the concept - leaving a message to stay readable for 10000 years - is extremely interesting, I find the reasons behind it rather silly. It's a solution in search of a problem - any societal collapse that leads to the entire concept of radioactivity being forgotten would leave mankind with bigger problems than accidentally drilling/mining into a radioactive waste (which, BTW, doesn't take all that long to become indistinguishable from plain old toxic waste, which nobody's building long-term storage facilities for) storage facility in the middle of the desert...

It's actually ""Expert Judgment on Markers to Deter Inadvertent Human Intrusion into the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant" which, at least the parts of the 400+ page report I've read, are just that expert opinions boiled down to fairly lay terms without judgment. There are others more recent, but I've only got access to them behind a pay barrier.

There doesn't need to be any collapse at all for English to become a dead language, or for us to forget where we put this stuff. I've personally been on failed projects to find significant, East coast, U.S., post-civil War military bases. Also, forget mining, think Hiram Bingham or even Joe Public out for a stroll into glowy death.

It's actually ""Expert Judgment on Markers to Deter Inadvertent Human Intrusion into the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant" which, at least the parts of the 400+ page report I've read, are just that expert opinions boiled down to fairly lay terms without judgment. There are others more recent, but I've only got access to them behind a pay barrier.

That's the one, yes.

Quote:

Also, forget mining, think Hiram Bingham or even Joe Public out for a stroll into glowy death.

Assuming the place is properly designed [1] (if it's not, that's the problem to solve), strolling into glowy death just Won't Happen(TM). Exposing the contents of a nuclear waste repository requires either a determined effort or a cataclysmic event - the latter of which brings me back to "mankind will have bigger problems"...

(Incidentally, this post was written while crunching radionuclide data, heh)

[1] I haven't looked at the designs for that particular plant, but I'm assuming something akin to Äspö HRL.

_________________Living in a state free from the burdens of privacy and democracy since 2008-06-18.

Hah! A friend of mine just stumbled across that report again, and noticed something:

Team A Report, Criteria for a Marking System with Examples wrote:

This place is a message... and part of asystem of messages... pay attention to it!

Sending this message was important to us.We considered ourselves to be a powerful culture.

This place is not a place of honor... nohighly esteemed deed is commemorated here... nothing valued is here.

What is here was dangerous and repulsive to us.This message is a warning about danger.

The danger is in a particular location...it increases towards a center... thecenter of danger is here... of aparticular size and shape, and below us.

The danger is still present, in your time, asit was in ours.

The danger is to the body, and it can kill.

The form of the danger is an emanationof energy.

The danger is unleashed only if yousubstantially disturb this place physically.This place is best shunned and left uninhabited.

gnolam's friend wrote:

Nuclear waste... or Great Old Ones?

This all assumes that human intelligence has increased to the point that "this is deadly dangerous" is taken as a warning, and not a promise.

_________________==============================================="A sufficiently-advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."Arthur C. Clarke"Sufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from technology."Jack L. Chalker"Magic is just another way of saying 'I don't know how it works.'"Larry Niven"Any technology, no matter how primitive, is magic to those who don't understand it."Florence Ambrose

That link 404s for me, but I'm sure I know which study it is (the "this is not a place of honor" one, right?). While the concept - leaving a message to stay readable for 10000 years - is extremely interesting, I find the reasons behind it rather silly. It's a solution in search of a problem - any societal collapse that leads to the entire concept of radioactivity being forgotten would leave mankind with bigger problems than accidentally drilling/mining into a radioactive waste (which, BTW, doesn't take all that long to become indistinguishable from plain old toxic waste, which nobody's building long-term storage facilities for) storage facility in the middle of the desert...

Larry Niven had an interesting suggestion: "Draw a line around the facility and place signs in every known written language which say: 'If you cross this line, you will die.' Some people will cross the line and the average IQ of the human race will rise by a minute fraction."

_________________==============================================="A sufficiently-advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."Arthur C. Clarke"Sufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from technology."Jack L. Chalker"Magic is just another way of saying 'I don't know how it works.'"Larry Niven"Any technology, no matter how primitive, is magic to those who don't understand it."Florence Ambrose